Rory Smith is a football reporter for the Daily and Sunday Telegraph in the north west, covering Liverpool and Everton, as well as Manchester United, Manchester City and the myriad other teams who make up English football's heartland.

The fixture list: your complete guide to what will happen next season

You can almost see it now. Hear it. Taste it. The stirring music. The slo-mo shots of Wayne Rooney, scowling, glowering; the by now familiar image of Alexis Sanchez, in red or blue, wheeling away after scoring a crucial goal; cut now to Sir Alex Ferguson, chewing pensively, and Roberto Mancini, gesticulating wildly, his badger's flick of grey hair slightly more pronounced than it was a few months ago, his innate Italianness there for all to see.

The shot of the studio. Here's Jamie, in tight trousers. Here's Gary Neville, now sporting a fuzzy handlebar on his top lip. Here's presenter drone number three. Ed. Or Dave. Something nice, something safe. Here's his skinny tie. Here's his serious face, waxy, lifeless. Like the Robot off I, Robot, but with product in his hair. Here's his serious voice. This is Eastlands. Manchester City versus Manchester United. This is the Premier League. April 28, 2012. This is the decider.

This morning's advent of the fixture list was greeted with typical banality by Sky Sports. "How about this," said Mike Wedderburn. "Jordan Henderson, now of Liverpool, will face Sunderland on the opening day." There's more. "If he's in the squad." And? "And Arsenal will face Newcastle, where they drew 4-4 last season." Trivia and tittle-tattle. Wedderburn is living in a fool's paradise. He's looking at the ironies and coincidences, the quirks of fate. He needs to look at the big picture.

The fixture list is not, as the Premier League would have you believe, a random selection of games thrown together by a big computer – the sort of thing that still runs on MS-DOS, I like to think – and then checked with the nearest Community Support Officer. Well, it might be. But if it is, then it proves the existence of a supreme being. The fixture list, unless it is manipulated by the Premier League, is evidence that life is not arbitrary, a sequence of unrelated events interpreted by our minds into a coherent structure. Oh no. The fixture list, if it truly is random*, proves that life is governed by narrative.

You can see, from merely a quick glance, how next season is going to pan out. You can almost plan the headlines, draw the pages, arrange the interviews and the talking heads and reserve the credence you will give to these spouting, irrelevant opinioneers. It's a tough start for Arsenal – Arsene Wenger facing crisis by end of August! – with United and Liverpool in the first three games. Then Spurs will struggle – Harry Out! – with Everton, United, City, Liverpool and Arsenal in their opening spell. Across London, Chelsea are flying, the early pacesetters. United have Spurs, Arsenal and Guus Hiddink's league leaders early on, but all at Old Trafford. They may drop a few points, but come October, they will be ominously placed.

City, meanwhile, fall back after their own promising start as the strains of maintaining combat on two fronts – World War II has taught football that this is a bad idea – begin to take their toll. City are away from home after each Champions League group game. "Do they have the squad and the experience to cope?" asks Alan Green, on Five Live. Mark Lawrenson mumbles a response. His heart's not been in it since he accidentally sat on Alan Shearer's lap, mistaking the teak-toned former Newcastle hitman for the Match of the Day sofa. Mancini is under pressure. His hair greys. He gesticulates more. Jose Mourinho is linked with the City job.

Soon attention turns elsewhere. Redknapp is already blaming Daniel Levy for not spending enough money by Mar 3, after Spurs struggle through a run of nine games including fixtures with United, Everton, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea and City. Liverpool fade, too, Kenny Dalglish's team not yet strong enough to cope with a February featuring a Merseyside derby, Spurs, United before Arsenal on Mar 3. Arsene Wenger's team last little longer: by the start of April, they, too, are thinking of the future. Again. All three are in a run for Europe; Arsenal's final games are sufficiently kind that Wenger will not have to spend money next summer, insisting his side are finally maturing.

And that leaves this year's current top three. March halts Chelsea's momentum – City, Spurs and Aston Villa, so solid under popular Carling Cup-winning manager Alex McLeish – and leaves City and United to slug it out. On Apr 28, the date assigned by the Premier League for title deciders. Well, not the date, so much as the slot: the third to last game, or thereabouts. For the last two seasons, it has been United versus Chelsea, with each side claiming one victory – and one title – apiece. This year it is Eastlands. This is the Premier League. This is the decider. The rest? That has already been decided.

*It isn't. I mean come on. We're not idiots. Look at the games. Oct 1 and Feb 25. North London and Merseyside derbies. Something like that happens every year. As if that's random. Come on.